


a bug in the works

by perlaret



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars - Doctor Aphra
Genre: Assholes With Feelings, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Femslash February, Heist, commitment issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/pseuds/perlaret
Summary: Most doctoral candidates onlydreamabout exacting petty revenge on their academic advisors. Aphra's never considered herself much of a dreamer.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I spent this last week catching up on my backlog of Star Wars trades, and this ship kind of reached out, grabbed my by the neck, and basically took over my whole life. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
> 
> Set between scenes in the extra from Doctor Aphra #1.

The vault door pops open with a mechanized hiss, accompanied by the merciful silence of security alarms utterly failing to go off.

“That was amazing,” Aphra says as the mechanically-inclined alien she’d hired (with a penchant for complicated break-ins) began putting away their tools. “Bypassing the circuit board like that. Inspired. What’re the chances you’d teach me?”

The alien, deliberately nameless for the purposes of any illegal venture, per the agreed terms, waggles their face tentacles in what Aphra can only assume was the Leuvian approximation of a disapproving frown. “That would cost you extra,” they say, thickly accented. Their biological construction does not lend to easy Basic.

“Hm.” Aphra links her fingers together before her, palms outward, and stretches her arms forward until her knuckles crack, and contemplates the open doorway before her. “Maybe. We’ll negotiate later. Time’s ticking, after all. Hey Sana, your people ready or what?”

There is a sharp whistle, and a moment later, the sound of several pairs of boots heralds the arrival of Sana Starros and three other assorted sometimes-friends, sometimes-hired-hands. 

“We’ve  _ been _ ready. What’s taking so long?” Sana says, impatient as ever. Their hardware specialist snaps something unhappy sounding in their own language, which Sana waves off with the hand that still has a blaster in it. Aphra wonders idly if she actually bothered to set it to stun, as agreed. Doubtful, honestly. “I hate this place in the daytime, and swore to spend as little time here as possible. I’m not wasting the whole night here.”

“Aww, you do care about me,” Aphra chimes in from over her shoulder before an argument can erupt, even as she slips into Sava Toob-Nix’s security vault. The Abersyn Symbiotes are secure and still, backlit in red light by the plasma vent keeping them in stasis. Absolutely deadly little suckers, and they were going to be her ticket to her doctorate, coasting on the back of what would soon be known as the most noteworthy academic development in ages. 

And Toob-Nix? Was going to deserve every petty minute of it.

“Those better not be what I think they are, Aphra.”

She looks back and Sana’s features are arranged in a stiff-jawed scowl, her blaster raised up as she surveys the walls of podded specimens. Aphra grins back, spreads her shoulders in the most casual of shrugs, before sauntering over to the data console in the corner. She takes a knee, slipping a hacker key into one of the ports. She’ll need more than just the symbiotes to pull this off without any backlash.

“I knew you listened to me when I talk about these things. But hey, I did warn you they were a biohazard.” Okay, so she’d appended a few of the details, but it’s not like this is Sana’s first time around the block. If she’d wanted to know, she would have asked. “Besides, they’re quiescent, and the portable plasma generator I spent all week whipping up should keep them that way long enough for me to pull this off.” 

And from there, to the incinerators. Tight schedule, sure, but she’s always been good at short turnarounds and looming deadlines.

“Deras, Nikowl, Jedda, are you going to just stand there all night? Get started,” Sana says, waving the others into the room. “Don’t you dare drop those, but if you do, do us all a favor and shoot the thing inside before you shoot yourself.”

“As cheerful as ever, Sana,” Nikowl says, eying their prizes with a whistle. “What are these?”

“Aphra didn’t hire you to ask questions. Load up the trolley.”

“Hear, hear!” Aphra adds cheerfully, hacking her way into the Sava’s project files. For all of his bluster, he’d barely added any additional security beyond the university’s standard firewalls. Charming. She’d broken through those in her first week on campus. A minute more and she’d have everything she needed backed up onto her own personal drives.

Sana tuts in response. “You have literally never mentioned these to me in your life,” she says flatly, taking to disengaging the pods from their settings one by one for the others to pick up for loading. “Some of us are from planets that still tell stories about these things, you know.”

Aphra tilts her a smile and bats her eyelashes. “Sana, if you’re scared...”

“Shut up,” Sana grumbles. “Before I shoot you.”

Her data drive chirps as the download completes. “You know I love it when you threaten to murder me. But, sweetie, let’s save it for the bedroom.”

Jedda burbles a throaty snigger from the doorway. Aphra doesn’t have to be looking to guess the expression that must cross Sana’s face, but she assumes that's what makes him backtrack to an immediate muttered apology, since she's too busy disengaging from Toob-Nix’s systems and clearing her tracks to be sure.

Anger colors Sana’s tone when she speaks next, but Aphra’s spent enough time with her by now to realize that’s how she covers her embarrassment. That’s endearing, at least until she actually hears her out.  “Are you going to help anytime soon, or just sit around some more,  _ Chelli?” _

“Wow,” Aphra gapes, immediately affronted. No one she’s not related to uses her first name, and she prefers to keep it that way, thank you. She whips around and shoves her hardware into a pocket. “Unnecessary.” She stalks over, liberating a symbiote from Sana’s grasp, and makes a face at her over the bulk of the pod. “Seriously, no need to get your panties in a twist, Starros.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sana counters, saccharine sweet now she’s landed a hit of her own. She always did like to stack the points in her favor. But then, didn’t they both?

Aphra hefts the pod and cooly turns for the door. “It’s fine,” she decides, shouldering past Deras, who is pointedly minding her own business. Deras was always good for that. “I’ll help you untwist them later.”

 

-

 

They load up and make it out of the University uninterrupted and on schedule, leaving Bar’leth in their rear viewports as quickly as they’d come. Sana’s ship is used for the whole affair; Aphra left hers back on Boothi XII to keep her alibi squared for her. The planet is only a few hours away once they hit open space, long enough for the crew to catch a nap before the next leg of work. Getting the specimens out of the university lab had been a cakewalk. Concealing them in an underground cavern so she can ‘discover’ them later? That will be the challenge. People will be talking about this archaeological dig for decades to come, so no reason to let them doubt its veracity.

As for Aphra, she’s not tired yet, and doesn’t expect she will be until the job is said and done. Besides, her time with the Abersyn Symbiotes is doomed to be short, which is pretty okay, truth be told, because dying? Not a thing she’s currently planning on, especially not via buggy brain-screwing. But she’s also an academic, and a damn good one at that, so yeah, she’s curious. Aphra sets herself in the cargo bay and spends her time monitoring the little fuckers, making sure they all get an equal share of the portable plasma vent she built and jotting down notes she’ll use to bullshit her dissertation later. She turns one of the containment pods around so she can get a better view of the creature inside, then leans back against a supply crate, props up her feet, taps her fingers on the edge of her datapad and tries to find an appropriately academic way to call the Symbiote’s exoskeleton  _ freaky. _

“There you are.”

Aphra tilts her head back until she can see Sana, framed by the doorway. She’s changed from the dark, deliberately casual outfit she’d worn earlier for sneaking around the school to something a little more appropriate for spelunking, her hair pinned neatly back from her face.

“How can I help you, honey?” 

Sana purses her lips. “You know, next time you feel like killing the whole galaxy? Leave me out of it.”

Aphra makes a show of sighing, punctuating it with a furrowed brow and obvious pout. She sets aside her datapad and rolls to her feet, patting the nearest contained Symbiote on her way up.

“You worry too much. I’ve been watching them basically nonstop, and they’re completely dormant, see?” When Sana remains unconvinced, Aphra frowns. “Come on, Sana. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Sana crosses her arms over her front, the fingers of one hand tapping the opposite elbow. Bitingly, she says, “I didn’t have room for it next to my  _ basic survival instinct _ kit, Aphra.”

She manages not to throw her hands up in the air in response, which is what Aphra feels like doing, but that will only turn this into more of an argument. This isn’t the first time they’ve disagreed on the particulars of an extracurricular job, and there have been some simply spectacular flameouts between them as a result before. But given the givens, Aphra would prefer Sana on her side the whole way through on this one. She adjust her approach.

Instead of saying any of the dozen very witty comebacks that jump immediately to mind, Aphra sidles her way in close, links her hands behind Sana’s neck, and presses her body against the other woman’s just so. “Hey tough girl,” she cajoles, very sweetly. “Everyone else is asleep. You gonna drop the act for me or what?”

Sana holds out for another beat, and then two, but after that she lets out a breath and some of the tension in her frame rushes out with it. She lifts her hands to Aphra’s shoulders, skims them down past her biceps to Aphra’s elbows, lingering there. Sana’s thumb traces the circle of one of her digi-tats gently.

“It’s not an act,” she says. “I  _ am _ worried. But it’d be easier if you stopped pushing my buttons every chance you get,” she adds, but it’s warm with affection, not annoyance.

The thing about Sana Starros is that she bluffs with the best of them, and is willing to be as ruthless as necessary when a situation calls for it, but underneath she’s capable of a fierce genuineness that honestly makes Aphra a little nervous. She worries that she’s the only one in their wide web of friends, contacts, and acquaintances who realizes this fact– it’s not the sort of thing Aphra would trust  _ herself _ with, given the option, she knows she’s not that trustworthy. Beyond that, Sana the burgeoning smuggler doesn’t scare her. But Sana, when they’re alone like this… Aphra tries not to think about it too much. It’s too complicated, riddled with too many unknowns, none of which she can uncover by any purely rational means. Reason infinity why artifacts are eternally preferable to people.

Aphra rocks forward, nudging Sana cheekily. “Yeah, but what are friends for, right?”

The tiniest fissure runs through Sana’s smile, just for a moment; Aphra notes the way the little spark of hurt steals some of the sweetness back behind her walls and hates it. Even more worrying is the earnest spark of regret in her own chest in its wake. She moves a hand swiftly to Sana’s cheek before Sana can respond, smoothing back the tiny stray curls at her temple.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Aphra says, even though she damn well did.

Sana wrinkles her nose at being caught out. “Don’t be a sap,” she counters, like Aphra’s the one who started this.

“Shut your mouth,” Aphra says right back, hoping the sharp grin she musters with it hides the bubble of nerves in her belly. She goes on her tiptoes before Sana can carry them any further down this dangerous path, fitting their mouths together neatly.

Sana’s hands tighten briefly at Aphra’s elbows, then find her waist instead, stealing their way around her. Aphra leans into her, relishing the heat that rushes between them, something reliable and increasingly familiar. There are not many things that Aphra can count on in life, let alone people, but she’s getting used to this– the gentle caress of Sana’s lips, the graze of her teeth, the soft sound that escapes as she sighs into the kiss, and a thousand other tiny details that Aphra can’t help but learn all bleed like water through the cracks they’ve worn in her defenses. Aphra sucks at Sana’s tongue and thinks the most dangerous thing in the room is not this woman in her arms, nor the hoard of inert parasites in the corner, but instead the wonderful, awful ache that blossoms in her own chest as they kiss.

They part, and Sana opens her eyes, licks her lips. “Aphra…”

“That’ll be Doctor Aphra to you, soon,” she reminds her glibly, warding away the urge to draw Sana back in and while away the remaining hours of their journey with more than just sleep or science. “A fact that I fully expect you to help me celebrate.”

Sana shakes her head slightly, half on a laugh. “Alright, fine,” she relents. “But I still hate these things. I’d better not regret this later.”

“You won’t regret anything,” Aphra promises, the pinnacle of confidence. She quickly pecks the corner of Sana’s mouth and extracts herself from her embrace, going to retrieve her datapad from the floor.  “We’ve covered every possible contingency, you made sure of that yourself. And once I call this in, you know the Imperial Forces are going to be all over this like a Hutt on credits. They’ll destroy them as soon as look at them, because literally no one, not even me, in the galaxy wants another epidemic on their hands.” 

“I know,” Sana says, and there’s far more reluctance there than there was before. “I’d feel better if I could burn them myself.”

“You never know, maybe you’ll get the chance,” Aphra teases. Quickly, before Sana can get on her case for it, she says, “I mean it, though. It’ll be okay, and this time next week we’ll look back on this over a glass of mediocre lum and toast ourselves for a job well done.”

“Mediocre? With the amount of credits you’re scamming out of your department funding with all those receipts you forge, you’re shelling out for the good stuff, Aphra.”

“Fine, fine. The good stuff,” she agrees with a wink. “You have my word.”

Sana laughs and heads for the door. “Yeah,” she says knowingly, pausing with her palm on the frame. “Whatever that’s good for.”

Silence falls in the room in her wake, and Aphra smiles wryly to herself, looking downward as she nudges one of the dormant Symbiote cells with a toe. Its shell clinks dully against the thick glass, unresponsive. “Not much,” she murmurs thoughtfully.

And then, with a shrug, she gets back to work.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can also come find me on [tumblr](http://chelliaphra.tumblr.com)! I desperately need more Sana/Aphra fans in my life.


End file.
